The $1 Trillion Wipeout: SpaceX Stock Nears IPO Price as Starship and Lock-Up Deadlines Approach
Published on 07/14/2026 at 05:52 | Redaktion boerse-global.de
SpaceX has shed nearly $1 trillion in market capitalization since its post-IPO peak just four weeks ago, a decline that has left the stock teetering less than $3 above its $135 offer price. The shares slipped another 4 percent on Monday to around $138, extending a sell-off that has erased roughly 35 percent from the $225 high reached on June 16. At the current valuation of about $1.9 trillion, the company is now worth a full trillion dollars less than the $2.9 trillion apex it touched in mid-June.
The slide has persisted despite a batch of positive catalysts. The Federal Aviation Administration cleared SpaceX for Flight 13 of its Starship program on Monday, closing the investigation into the previous Flight 12 and setting a launch date of Thursday, July 16. That mission will carry 20 operational Starlink V3 satellites equipped with 60 Tbit/s capacity apiece, and will also test an in-space Raptor engine reignition — a capability critical for future Artemis lunar missions. Yet the regulatory green light failed to arrest the downward momentum.
A separate tailwind that proved short-lived was SpaceX’s inclusion in the Nasdaq-100 on July 7. Index-tracking funds bought an estimated $4.3 billion of the stock, but the buying was absorbed quickly. Last week alone, the shares dropped 12 percent.
A Wall Street Schism Wider Than the Gulf
The battle over SpaceX’s fair value is generating some of the most extreme divergences on the Street. Raymond James reaffirmed a Strong Buy rating with an $800 price target, implying a future market cap above $10.5 trillion, and cited the accelerating Starship launch cadence and the satellite payloads. Morgan Stanley’s $300 target comes with a bear-case floor of just $75. On the other hand, Morningstar pegs intrinsic value at $63, while CFRA rates the stock a Sell with a $115 target. The most bearish call comes from hedge-fund manager George Noble, who values the company at a mere $30 a share and warns that the expiration of lock-up agreements will flood the market with stock. Investor Michael Burry has publicly questioned whether the company’s prospectus justifies the current valuation, and fund manager Mark Yusko drew a pointed comparison to Dogecoin, calling the valuation “silly” and unsustainable.
Should investors sell immediately? Or is it worth buying SpaceX?
Of the 35 analyst ratings tracked, 27 are Buy, seven are Hold, and only one is Sell — but the gulf between price targets is enormous, spanning from $63 to $800. Goldman Sachs sees $205, Bank of America $235, UBS $210, and Bernstein holds a $239 target, with the latter calling China’s recent successful landing of a reusable Long March 10B booster a sign that the competitive gap is narrowing. Geopolitical headwinds have also weighed: President Trump’s announced blockade of Iranian shipping through the Strait of Hormuz roiled broad equity markets, dragging SpaceX along.
Starlink Soars, But the Conglomerate Bleeds Cash
The bull case rests heavily on Starlink. The satellite-internet unit generated $11.4 billion in revenue in 2025 and $4.4 billion in operating profit, year-over-year gains of roughly 50 percent and 120 percent, respectively. Subscribers hit 10.3 million as of March 2026. But the broader company remains deep in the red: a net loss of $4.9 billion for 2025 was followed by an additional $4.28 billion loss in the first quarter of 2026 alone.
That red ink is fueled by aggressive expansion into artificial intelligence. SpaceX has struck partnerships with Google and Anthropic, and in late June it placed $25 billion in bonds maturing in 2056 to refinance a $20 billion bridge loan. The company is also pursuing a $60 billion all-stock acquisition of Anysphere, the developer behind the coding tool Cursor. AI-related revenue, analysts caution, is unlikely to appear in the income statement for some time.
SpaceX at a turning point? This analysis reveals what investors need to know now.
Lock-Up Looms as the Next Stress Test
A persistent source of volatility is the razor-thin free float, estimated at just 4 to 5 percent of outstanding shares. Critics blame that scarcity for the violent swings since the IPO. The first tranche of insider shares — roughly 20 percent of the locked-up total — will become tradeable in early August, coinciding with the company’s inaugural quarterly earnings report as a publicly listed entity. Analyst Gary Black has warned that the additional supply could push the stock below the original IPO price.
“The market is going to have to absorb a lot of stock in a short period,” Black said. With the IPO price of $135 now within arm’s reach, the coming weeks — Flight 13 on Thursday, the lock-up expiration in early August, and the subsequent earnings release — will determine whether SpaceX stabilizes or breaks through the floor.
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